By Gina Gomez
Feb 1, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that they are going to donate $10 billion on vaccine in the next 10 years. According to reports, the amount they are donating is perhaps the largest contribution by the foundation so far. It is almost twice the sum provided by them in the last 5 years. The purpose is of making vaccination available in the developing nations that will aim at saving thousands of lives from different diseases.

Bill Gates said, “We must make this the decade of Vaccines.” He added that vaccines save and improve lives. Innovation in the field of vaccine will further save children and decrease death rate in the developing countries. Thousands of children belonging to poor countries are subject to diseases like malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia which at times become fatal. Sadly they lack life saving vaccines.

The foundation reports that their donation can help in saving up to 7.6 million kids under the age of 5 in the next ten years. They expect a drastic decrease in the death rates (by 1.1 million kids) if a malaria vaccine is introduced by 2014, along with a tuberculosis vaccine.

Melinda Bates is hopeful that these vaccines will reduce the death rate among children. She said that she has first-hand experience of witnessing the miracle that vaccines can bring in the lives of children.

The executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), Orin Levine has praised the Gates foundation which is working really hard in order to encourage innovation in vaccine which will help save the lives of millions of children. He added that the foundation cannot achieve full success unless it is helped by the manufacturers.